In “On the Rise,” the Daily Bruin profiles up-and-coming musicians in Los Angeles. Though our subjects do not necessarily have direct connections with UCLA, they are artists who have brought their sounds to Los Angeles and have taken advantage of opportunities within the city’s thriving music scene.
An old radio station in Texas played songs by Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna, and 20-year-old Allene Norton listened with rapt attention.
Norton’s love for synth-pop led her to write and record her own 1980s-style songs in her bedroom back then.
In 2013, Norton moved from Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles and brought the music from her bedroom to the studio for her synth-pop project, Cellars. The singer-songwriter released her most recent album “Phases” under the alias “Cellars” in 2016 and is currently working on a new EP.
The singer, now 27, has been in love with music for as long as she can remember, Norton said. Though she is not from the 1980’s herself, her music is inspired by artists from the decade and are recreated in a more modern setting.
At college in Austin, Norton studied audio engineering and mixed records for other musicians. Learning about production and live sound prompted her to create her own recordings, and she decided to make singing and songwriting her primary career.
“It just got to the point where I was working a lot as an engineer, but it was so hard for me as a creative person to be mixing records or doing live sound for other bands when I had all of these songs and ideas of my own,” she said.
Norton’s move to Los Angeles gave her access to a larger community of musicians, letting her pursue music more seriously than she could have elsewhere, she said.
“There’s a real community here for musicians at all levels and stages in their career,” Norton said. “It’s cool to be able to see that progression in a city.”
Cellars formed as a result of Norton’s desire to play songs live as a band, without actually being in a band. Functioning as a solo project enabled her to switch out members whenever necessary, yet play in a collaborative, live setup without going by just her own name, she said.
The name “Cellars” draws inspiration from a number of factors, one of them being the concept of a cellar door representing a gateway to another place.
Cellars typically consists of Norton herself, and one to two other members.
Paris Yavuz, Cellars’ bassist since 2014, met Norton when she was playing a show at The Continental Room in Fullerton, California. Yavuz enjoyed her voice and the vibe of her performance, he said, and approached her after the show. He kept in touch with her, eventually became a part of Cellars and has been working with Norton ever since.
“Our production style and process is pretty identical,” Yavuz said. “She has certainly influenced me and I’d like to think that I’ve influenced her in some way, but really, we’re just contemporaries that happen to be good friends.”
Norton was offered a contract by Manifesto Records in 2015. Signing with the label gave her the opportunity to release “Phases,” co-produced by musicians Ariel Pink and Don Bolles.
Norton said “Phases,” as the name suggests, represents snapshots of different stages in her life and includes tracks like loves songs about the relationship she was getting out of when she moved to Los Angeles and a song about figuring herself out in a new city titled “Nighttime Girl.”
As with her early music, Norton wrote the tracks on “Phases” in her bedroom. But unlike her older music, the music from her album was produced with other artists. Instead of being solely her own creation, “Phases” bears the musical influence of both Pink and Bolles as well.
“Bringing it into the studio, working on it and massaging it into a real album with Ariel and Don kind of is what set it apart,” Norton said. “I grew a lot as a producer, an engineer and a writer in that process.”
For Norton, the creation of “Phases” represents a major milestone of her career.
“It felt like I was finally doing what I was meant to do,” Norton said. “I would be pulling 17-hour days in the studio, and engineering the whole record myself and working with Ariel and Don and I would never get tired – I could just do that forever.”
Bolles sang and played the drums for some tracks on “Phases” in addition to co-producing the album. Though he was never a fan of music from the ’80s, Norton’s songs were an exception because of her instinctive understanding of music, he said.
“I generally hate the kind of music that Allene really likes,” Bolles said. “But her take on it is really good because she’s got a good brain, she’s a good musician and she’s got good aesthetics.”
After touring “Phases” in 2016, Norton is considering the possibility of a new tour for Cellars. Her upcoming, currently unnamed EP track is set to release in the summer.
In the meantime, Norton continues to collaborate with other musicians under the project Cellars to recreate a synth ’80s sound.
“It’s not entirely Allene Norton,” she said. “It’s Cellars.”
